Jun Choi

U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone (D-Long Branch), center, in the crowd today with Assemblyman Joe Egan (D-New Brunswick), left, and Middlesex County Freeholder H. James Polos.

EDISON - Against a landscape of Middlesex County Democratic Party strife, Vice President Joe Biden this afternoon stumped for Gov. Jon Corzine, arguing the international context of the recession, which he said Republican candidate Chris Christie has tried to pin solely on Corzine.

"Jon has said he governed in tough times," said the vice president. "Let's give him the chance to govern in good times."

Deadlocked with Christie, according to most polls, Corzine's handlers want him to repeat a double-barrel message from here until Election Day two weeks from now: remind people that he acted early to blunt the impact of the recession, and that the pro-unon, pro-choice, anti-gun incumbent shares the values of most New Jersey voters. 

Biden was here to amplify that two-pronged argument.

"Isn't it great we have Barack Obama and Joe Biden in the White House?" Corzine asked the crowd. "Their values are our values, right?"

There is speculation that David Donnelly, a special assistant to Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy, has quickly emerged as the leading candidate to replace Ward B Councilman Phil Kenny.  Kenny resigned this afternoon, one day after pleading guilty to taking bribes and slightly more than three months after taking office.  Donnelly worked as an aide to Edison Mayor Jun Choi before taking a job on Healy's staff two years ago.  His mother, Mary Donnelly, held the Ward B Council seat until her retirement in 2005.

Dislodged from his seat of power and relegated now to a halfway house in Newark, former Middlesex County Democratic Party Chairman John Lynch sits in a landscape in which this gubernatorial contest unfolds and the candidate from his party fights for political survival.

Indicted for failing to report income by former U.S. Attorney Chris Christie (now the Republican nominee for governor), convicted and sentenced in 2006 to three years and three months in prison, Gov. Jim McGreevey's political genii and hard-nosed boss of the Raritan River rustbelt occupies political no man's land while Corzine flails and discord punctuates much of the sprawling county he once ruled.

"We need John Lynch," one Middlesex County Democratic Party insider moaned a coupled of weeks ago at the issuance of yet another poll showing incumbent Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine struggling to get his chin over 40% and eight points behind Christie.

"He's a missed leader in Middlesex," County Democratic Party Chairman Joe Spicuzzo said of his party forbearer. "He had his own style and it was successful. I talk to him once a week. He's doing fine and will get out around Nov. 13th."

GOP mayoral candidate Dennis Pipala

Edison Councilwoman Toni Ricigliano went after her Republican opponent and lame duck Mayor Jun Choi in one stroke today, suggesting an alliance between businessman Dennis Pipala and Choi.

“The next mayor will be left to clean up the mess from all the hasty financial decisions that the Choi Administration is now making,” said the Democrats' candidate for mayor, who criticized Choi's summertime promotion of three new police sergeants, and asked Pipala to “show good faith, good judgment and join my request to end all wasteful spending.”

Pipala, Ricigliano said in a release, has been “a close advisor and political ally of Mayor Choi for years. It makes good business sense for Dennis to ask the mayor to be more financially responsible now.”

Pipala fired back this afternoon.

State Sen. Bob Smith (D-Piscataway) today in New Brunswick.

NEW BRUNSWICK -  State Sen. Bob Smith (D-Piscataway) believes local contests will drive Democratic Party turnout in Middlesex County and improve Gov. Jon Corzine's opportunity for victory, particularly local fights in Woodbridge and New Brunswick.

"I'm on the hustings every night, and I can feel the momentum turning our way," said Smith, appearing with Corzine at an event to promote the governor's Return to Work program.

But talk to Democrats privately about the gubernatorial race and their worry inevitably runs to Middlesex, where Corzine scored 67% in the Democratic Primary, and where Republican Chris Christie signs make front lawn statements everywhere in the sprawl of blue collar towns here.

Sensing opportunity, Christie and his running mate, Kim Guadagno, campaigned avidly in Middlesex this summer, hitting the fairgrounds and street parades in places like Edison and Sayreville and generally stirring more enthusiasm for their candidate than a comparatively moribund Democratic Party effort.

Councilwoman Toni Ricgliano

At the center of Gov. Jon Corzine's turmoil in Middlesex County stands Edison, the biggest town of 25 Middlesex towns, and home to the most registered Democrats, where for Corzine, a civil war primary has bled dangerously into the general election.

On paper - 24,579 registered Democrats to 6,012 Republicans - Edison should be a steamroll win for Democrats, but the town's 17,842 undeclared voters typically don't let mayoral contests pass without a fight. Given the unholy alliances emblematic of Edison politics, the last four general elections here have been close. Top of the ticketwise, Corzine won Edison by single digits in 2005, the same year Mayor Jun Choi pulled out a squeaker against independent Bill Stephens.

Now the fact that Choi, beaten in the June primary, 6,582 to 6,204 votes, does not intend to endorse his Democratic Party conqueror, Councilwoman Antonia "Toni" Ricigliano, creates an especially troubling wrinkle for Team Corzine, who had hoped Choi would call on his troops to unify behind the Democratic ticket and mitigate any independent voter stampede away from Corzine.

Who will run with Wisniewski?

SAYREVILLE - The special Middlesex Democratic County Committee convention candidacy of former Edison Municipal Judge Craig Coughlin of Woodbridge in the 19th Legislative District received a boost this afternoon as veteran Woodbridge Councilman Charles Kenny aborted his run and threw his support to Coughlin in a maneuver apparently designed to do more than simply upset the candidacy of retired Superior Court Judge Mathias Rodriguez of Perth Amboy.

"Today I am withdrawing my name for consideration as a candidate for the 19th Legislative District Assembly seat," Kenny said. "In withdrawing my name from consideration, I offer my support and endorsement to former Edison Municipal Court Judge Craig Coughlin in his bid to represent the citizens of the 19th District."

Certainly the move makes it more difficult for Rodriguez - who's running with the backing of neophyte Perth Amboy Mayor Wilda Diaz and who at one point appeared to be the favorite - to win, despite what his allies today insisted is a stepped-up speed dial effort six days before the convention.

In what has become Coughlin versus Rodriguez, the municipal judge against the superior court judge, (Woodbridge healthcare professional Jean Pierce is also running but most Middlesex County insiders don't expect her to be a factor), Coughlin now has the decided edge, according to sources, as the three Democratic Party candidates trying to run alongside incumbent Assemblyman John Wisniewski (D-Sayreville) made their individual pitches to county committee members tonight at party headquarters.

GOP candidate for lieutenant governor Kim Guadagno - with Assemblyman Sam Thompson (R-Old Bridge) - waves atop Chris Christie's float in Edison today.

EDISON - It was a parade march that kept coming, and for a brief time Monmouth County Sheriff Kim Guadagno walked at the head of it with some other dignitaries, before she circled back to the "Chris Christie" float, jumped aboard, and waved atop that perch as she rolled eastward on Oak Tree Road through the same crowd.

"You're double-dipping!" someone cried across the roil of Indian flag waving up and down the street and the Republican candidate for lieutenant governor laughed in return and rolled onward. 

Right behind her in this march honoring India's 63rd year of independence from Great Britain rolled the float of Peter Kothari, overhung with signs proclaiming him a "fearless leader who can deliver change that we can believe in" - and one half of the Republican ticket in the 19th District, a mosh of Middlesex towns anchored by Kothari's hometown of Woodbridge.

Kothari's doubled back himself a million times on this road that leads him again and again to 1990, when the real estate agent moved into his new office on Oak Tree in 1990 and somebody promptly smashed out the windows. 

When he went to the police department to complain, he says they shrugged in his face and said: "Call the insurance company."

Kothari did that - but he also reached back to his student organizing days in India to become more political. 

If Barbara Buono is elected Lt. Governor in November, it will trigger a special election convention to fill her 18th district State Senate seat.  Assemblyman Patrick Diegnan (D-South Plainfield) would be the front runner, although former State Sen. Thomas Paterniti (D-Edison) and lame duck Edison Mayor Jun Choi could also emerge as candidates.  A Diegnan victory would trigger a second special election convention to fill his Assembly seat.

Buono's election as Lt. Governor would also create an opening for the Senate Appropriations Committee chairmanship - a slot that would be filled by the Senate President.  That puts a power committee chair in play during a possible Senate leadership fight.

More important to New Jersey politics if Buono is elected LG: she would immediately become a potential candidate for the 2013 Democratic nomination for Governor, when Jon Corzine would be term-limited out.  And if Corzine were to trade is own lame duck status for a post in the Obama administration (possibly in January 2013, if Barack Obama is re-elected), Buono would become the Governor of New Jersey.

There's some buzz that Edison Mayor Jun Choi might try to run for as a Republican now that the GOP has lost their candidate, but the idea is a non-starter.

Reached by PolitickerNJ.com, Choi, who lost the Democratic primary earlier this month, pointed out that that the state's "sore loser" law bars him from running in the general after losing the primary.

Choi is correct.  Even though the law does not apply to legislators, freeholders, and even municipal council members, mayors are barred from running again.  But a Democrat allied with Choi could switch parties and become the GOP candidate against Democrat Toni Ricigliano.

The law was challenged in 2005, when the late Albert McWilliams, then mayor of Plainfield, lost the Democratic primary to Sharon Robinson-Briggs.  McWilliams tried to run as a Republican, but County Clerk Joanne Rajoppi wouldn't let him on the ballot.  After a court challenge, Union County Superior Court Judge Walter Barisonek ruled the law unconstitutional, but his decision was overturned on appeal.